The map is the territory

Dossier: What is German Media Philosophy?

When I read the expression ‘The map is not the territory’ for the first time, it occurred to me that it contained the quintessence of Anglo-American philosophy of common sense. The defiant insistence on a logic of representation, a common-sense belief in the evidence of an objective ‘reality’ that is prior to all mental representations […]

Bertrand Russell’s brainchild: Analytical philosophy: Its conception and birth

COMMENTARY Bertrand Russell’s brainchild Analytical philosophy: its conception and birth Ray Monk ‘Just arrived from Germany, a Fine Consignment of Assorted Weltanschauungen.’ s o ran an announcement on the back of a spoof edition of Mind edited by F.C.S. Schiller in 1901. Below it was a message from a satisfied customer: ‘Your latest “Immoralist” Weltanschauung […]

Return of the Translator

COMMENTARY Return of the Translator Jonathan Ree ‘The Death of the Author’ is one of the great catchphrases of recent philosophy. It started as the title of an essay by Roland Barthes in 1968, and cleverly captures the idea that the act of reading ought to attend to textual structures rather than authorial personalities – […]

65 Editorial

EDITORIAL The Radical Philosophy Group, so the mission statement on the inside cover used to announce, grew in part out of opposition to ‘the sterile and complacent philosophy taught in British universities and colleges’. And, as any radical philosopher would have told you, nothing more typified this sterility and complacency than the school of ‘linguistic […]

English Philosophy in the Fifties

English Philosophy in the Fifties Jonathan Ree If you asked me when was the best time for philosophy in England in the twentieth century-for professional, academic philosophy, that is – I would answer: the fifties, without a doubt. And: the fifties, alas. * Under the leadership of Gilbert Ryle and f.L. Austin, the career philosophers […]
Four men in suits on armchairs talking

Massacre of the Innocents: Derrida and the Cambridge Dons;Waiter Benjamin Centenary; Women and the History of Philosophy; Singer Silenced; Philosophy for Children

NEWS Massacre of the Innocents: Derrida and the Cambridge Dons On 21 March, at a lofty conclave of dons at Cambridge University, something happened. The matter for discussion was a list of academic aristos to be invited to receive an honorary doctoral degree from the Duke of Edinburgh. (Honorary degrees are solemn rewards for those […]

W.V.O. Quine, 1908–2000

Obituary W.V.O. Quine, 1908–2000 Over Christmas, Quine died: the sad but proper occasion to revisit his huge contribution to philosophy – in particular its relation to those currents of thought which most preoccupy RPʼs readers and contributors. ʻNot much of a relationʼ will say those who only acknowledge Quine as the doyen of the ʻAnalyticʼ […]